


3 Courses; 8 Guests; 1 Ally

by EternalRedWolfe



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 20:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalRedWolfe/pseuds/EternalRedWolfe
Summary: *Alternate version of 3x02 Dead Man's Party.*  Buffy Summers is struggling with being back in Sunnydale.  When her mother invites her friends to dinner, Buffy can't help but feel completely alone until one of the guests surprise her.





	3 Courses; 8 Guests; 1 Ally

**Author's Note:**

> HI!
> 
> If you've been keeping up with my long-fics, namely Ripper, I just want to say thank you, and I'm sorry posting has been sparse but I promise you, more is coming this summer. 
> 
> So this is my first fic in a year. It's short, but I hit a streak. There's this one and another one coming. 
> 
> I hit this major writing block. The ideas have been coming; I've been playing them out in my head but getting them onto pages, virtual or otherwise, has been tough. Almost to the point of, why am I doing this? The answer, always, is because it's fun and it makes me feel good. Most of the time, the struggle is with my writing style.
> 
> But I started listening to a FanFic podcast - The Sunnydale Fanfic Club - and one of the hosts said something that gave me the kick up the behind that I needed. 
> 
> Which is why you are reading this pre-story plea. 
> 
> I will welcome any and all criticism you have to give so that I can adapt my writing style to give you the stories I want to write and hope you will love, as well as complete the stories you are all waiting for. Constructive criticism, detailed criticism, anything. I wrote this story in about 4 hours and, like a lot of my stories it started out well and somewhere around the middle-end I feel like I lost the flow and the voice and got to the point where I was just writing for content sake. So read - hit me as hard as you can because I will appreciate it to no end. xx
> 
> Most importantly, Enjoy :)

Buffy looked at herself in the mirror. She had spent a long, long, boring afternoon rummaging through her wardrobe looking for something to wear for tonight. Something right. Maybe something that can clear away her lack of being there for the last three months. She would apologize to her mom and Giles for the worry she put them through. She would talk to Giles about Slayer duties, namely the undead cat. She would talk to Xander about military slaying operations. She would talk to Willow about everything she's been through since she left. Well, from her getting on the bus. She pulled a face in the mirror. Steer clear of all things Vamp Mansion, Summers. Her heart hurt for the umpteenth time since... Since her birthday.

She pulled herself together and continued through her plan. She's ask Oz about Dingoes and going off to college, and she'd talk to Cordelia - well, listen to Cordelia and her recent musings. 

She gave herself one last look in the mirror. She'd opted for a pink dress. Not conservative. More cute. Cuter than she'd allowed herself to wear in a long time.

What could possibly go wrong?  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
The bell rang as Buffy finished setting the table, followed closely by a knock. She smiled. Please be Willow. Or Giles. Or Xander. If she could talk to them first, alone, before the others arrived, just one of them, she could get through this dinner. She pulled open the door and

Her smile fell.

"Hey, there you are." Buffy was stunned as Joyce's friend, Pat, walked in past Buffy, not even waiting to be invited. Like she lived there.

Even more stunning were the comments that came about Buffy running off - what right had this woman to say these things to her. She eventually stopped listening. She didn't even care if she was cutting into a sentence. Her entire plan was thrown.

"Do you want to see my mom?"

"Please."

Buffy turned to the stairs. "MOM!"  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Buffy sat in the living room, listening to the laughs and cackles her mom and Pat were producing from the kitchen. Once her mom came down, they immediately went to the kitchen, her mom paying little attention to Buffy, only asking Buffy to set the table.

She fidgeted with a tassel on a cushion. Checking the clock again and again. Everyone was late. All she wanted to do was run upstairs and cry into her pillow. Run upstairs. Run...

Finally, as if a lifetime had passed, there was a knock on the door. Buffy looked out to window, wanting to be prepared for anymore unexpected guests. Heck, maybe her father would turn up to this thing. But standing at the door were Willow and Oz.

Buffy jumped from the sofa and ran to the door. She beamed as she opened it. "Hey guys!" She stood aside to let them in.

"Hey." Oz gestured for Willow to walk in first, smiling lazily at Buffy. Willow's smile looked strained. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Buffy turned to Willow, leaving Oz to close the door. "Hey, I, uh. Sorry you couldn't make it today."

"Oh, yeah, I had school stuff."

"Maybe tomorrow?"

"Maybe. Is your mom around? I, uh - " Willow held up the container she was holding.

"Um, yeah. Kitchen." 

Buffy couldn't keep the hurt from her face as Willow walked away.

"It's cake," Oz offered. "She made it herself." He hesitated for a moment. "She's been really busy since school started." 

Buffy nodded, then put on the cheeriest smile she could manage and walked to the living room. "Lemonade?"

"Sure."

Buffy poured out three glasses of lemonade, though from the three hushed voices coming from the kitchen, Buffy didn't expect to see Willow anytime soon.

Oz was quiet. Buffy didn't take it personally. Actually, it was comforting. Oz not trying too hard - same old Oz. Buffy asked him all the questions she had prepared for him: how were Dingoes doing? Was he excited about college? His reply about repeating senior year threw her a little especially when he said that he had spent a lot of his summer with Willow and patrolling but he reassured her that he had been there because of Willow.

Not long after, the others arrived. When Xander and Cordelia walked in Willow returned. For once Buffy was thankful for Cordelia's non stop talking and her lack of consideration for people and circumstances. Oz and Cordelia: Who'd have thought that after three months they were the ones she was most happy to be around?

Finally Giles arrived, full of apologies and reassurances that they would discuss the mask later, and they could all sit down to dinner, though Joyce had pushed to start it earlier: "Mr. Giles is late and that's his own doing."  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
So they sat down to their first course.

No one spoke to Buffy. They spoke at her, they told her things, but the never waited for a reply; they traveled in packs, Willow standing to help Joyce and Pat with the dishes. Buffy looked up, dazed, from where her plate had been. How long had it been gone for? How long had she been gone? She felt a hand on hers and looked at Giles sitting next to her. It was his reassuring, sad smile that pulled her out of her daze. That smile, full of pity as it might have been, was an interaction.

"So, what's new on the dead cat front?"

And as quickly as it had been there, the interaction was gone. The main course came in. Pat was carrying hers and Buffy's and took her seat on the other side of Giles, pulling him into a conversation, asking him if he'd read certain books. Giles doesn't read those kinds of book, you interloper.

Buffy barely touched her food. She didn't listen to the conversation. She looked past Pat, into the conversation, where she saw herself stabbing Angel, plunging him to hell. She felt her eyes burning. Somewhere in it all she heard something about a bus stop. She couldn't deal. 

"Excuse me." She knew it had been just about audible but she didn't care. She raised her hand, stopping Giles as he was standing. She ran up the stairs; ran into her room; collapsed on the bed and cried. She could see the suitcase by the window.

Maybe. Maybe it would be better to go. Maybe I shouldn't have come back. 

She didn't think about it. She rolled off the bed and grabbed the suitcase, throwing it on the bed and moved swiftly to the wardrobe, pulling a bunch of clothes off the hangars and bringing them to the bed to decide what to take with her. She'd sneak out the window. She wouldn't go to LA this time. That would be too obvious. Maybe somewhere quiet like, Kansas or Nebraska. Somewhere they wouldn't think about finding her. Just somewhere quiet.

"What are you doing?"

Buffy swallowed. Why are none of my plans working out? She turned to Cordelia standing in the door, arms folded, eyebrows raised. Classic Cordelia stance. 

"What? Someone worry I'd taken off?"

"Yes. With good reason, apparently." She tilted her head to the suitcase on the bed and walked into the room, sitting on the windowsill. "I figured you didn't need your mom or Willow coming up here in case you had taken off. And I wanted to find out what moisturizer your mom uses."

"It's something generic." My god, did Cordelia actually just shudder. 

"So, you're running off again. Good for you. Maybe you should. Maybe you should stick closer to home this time, though, see the fallout of what happens when you do."

Buffy refused to let Cordelia Chase of all people see her cry. "They'll be better off."

"Trust me they won't be."

"What would you know? Everyone down there is just waiting for me to run off again?"

"And you're going to, what, prove them right? You know what, Buffy, you weren't here since the big blow out at vamp mansion. I was*. Giles came to school the next day bruised and broken and the torture didn't stop there. Every time he heard of something happening somewhere, he got on a plane. Willow's did some serious magic that night and she's dealing with that. Your mom got this huge bombshell dropped on her and no one to go through it all with her. But mostly they all missed you. 

And I get it, you've been through stuff yourself. I'm not diminishing that. You had to kill Angel. You've been feeling so alone. Maybe for longer than we realised and there was nothing you could do about it. But maybe if you'd talked about it. When you came to Sunnydale, Xander and Willow were so happy because they had another freak to deal with things with." Is this talk supposed to be comforting? "And then you take off and you come back and all of a sudden they don't know how to relate to you. Because the person they thought they knew better than anyone else was going through these things and they didn't know it. And now they can't deal and that's down to them.

But at the end of the day they need you. And you need them. Maybe you should have stuck around. Maybe all this hurting wouldn't have been so bad if you'd been with them.

You think those people down there are judging you? They're not. I am but they're not. They're worried about you because they love you. Everyone in that room loves you. Except maybe your mom's friend. I don't know what her deal is but she smells like she's having a good time with those Peach Schnapps I saw in the kitchen."

Buffy laughed. For the first time in three months, maybe even longer, she felt something warm and familiar. All because of Cordelia Chase?

Cordelia smiled. "Now if you like, you can keep packing and I'll give you a head start or we can go downstairs. Willow brought cake for dessert and I've been craving chocolate cake." Cordelia pushed herself off the seat and walked for the door.

Buffy slid the suitcase off the side of her bed. "Cordelia." Cordelia turned Buffy. "Thanks."

Cordelia just shrugged and walked out of the room.

Buffy walked out the door stood at the top of the stairs. Huh, an ally in Cordelia Chase. 

Her surprise was short lived when she heard Cordy's voice from the dining room. "Finally, dessert. I thought I'd have to finish those empanadas."


End file.
